Tomb Raider: Underworld Review

Does Lara's latest adventure break out of Legend's shadow?

When it comes to game icons, Lara Croft ranks as one of the most well known in the world. Eidos' popular heroine has explored the ruins of various cultures, fought human and supernatural threats, and solved countless puzzles on her way to becoming one of the greatest archeologists (or treasure hunters) in gaming. Two years ago, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics rebooted the franchise with Tomb Raider: Legend, a title that revamped the combat, control scheme and brain teasing puzzles that the series was known for. The follow-up to this adventure, Tomb Raider: Underworld, was recently released with hopes to expand on this formula. But has Lara learned some new tricks, or is this an old journey in disguise?

Underworld is a continuation of the storyline established within Legend, and even presents a quick summary in the form of a recap video for players that are new to the storyline or want a quick refresher. Covering both the mystery surrounding her mother as well as the last research that her father did before he died, Underworld starts as Lara explores coordinates that lead her to an ancient ruin on the Mediterranean Sea floor. As she investigates, she uncovers a rather surprising find: a site dedicated to both Norse mythology and evidence that indicates that Thor's hammer, the mythical weapon wielded by the God of Thunder, actually exists. While I won't give facets of the story away, I can comfortably say that for the most part, the story is pretty good; it manages to present the kind of adventure that you typically expect from a Tomb Raider title and while there are some moments of predictability (particularly if you've played Legend), the game's mix of cutscenes and exploration keeps the action moving just as you'd want it to.

The pacing that you see is slightly due to the expansion and refinement of the some of the gameplay mechanics. For example, in Legend, players were given the largest amount of flexibility yet in a Tomb Raider game, with a lot of freedom provided to your agility, the speed at which you climbed or moved around ledges, and other control elements. That is pretty much retained within Underworld, so you still are able to easily manipulate Lara's acrobatics when it comes to swinging on poles, scaling walls and other moves. Underworld attempts to build on these basics within a few adjusted gameplay systems. One of the first refinements is the removal of the quick time events from Legend in favor of Situational Adrenaline. Instead of having a button prompt that pops up onscreen that tells you what you need to do to survive a particular moment, the developers tried to give you a feeling that you simply need to react by moving and avoiding that particular threat.

Another adjustment that has been made within the gameplay is some minor adjustments to combat. Lara still retains the agility that allows her to perform actions like tumbling and firing weapons at the same time or aiming at targets from ledges or other perches. In Underworld, Lara now gains the ability to aim at and fire at two separate enemies that happen to be targeting her at the same time. This is particularly useful if you're trying to take out swarms of bats or other creatures, but can also be used to hamper the progress of other enemies that attempt to close in on you and perform melee attacks. What's more, Underworld provides Lara with sticky grenades that she can throw, ensuring that an explosive that you want to go off in a specific location will detonate at the desired place and cutting down on the frustration that frequently occurred in Legend.

We're gonna need a bigger ... wait, we're gonna need a boat!

While Legend allowed players to bounce behind an enemy and shoot them in a bullet time enhanced motion, the flip has simply been included into her normal repertoire. The focus system from Legend has been somewhat replaced by the inclusion of an adrenaline system, which is built up after each successful melee attack or bullet that hits its mark. Players can trigger the adrenaline at any time, which instantly slows down the actions of your enemies and makes your shots much stronger. Alternatively, you can store your adrenaline until you've maxed out your holdings, at which point you can get close to an enemy and bounce off of them, lining up a reticule into a highlighted area to potentially perform a one-shot kill. It's not guaranteed, but if you can get in place, it does allow you to get satisfying takedowns that are worthy of Lara's athleticism.

However, while the adjustments for combat do help to make the fights you go through a bit more accessible, it does wind up raising a few other problems. For one thing, the adrenaline system manages to make a large number of the battles a bit too easy. Because you're always replenishing your adrenaline, you are frequently able to continually move in and out of gunfights or other combat situations with an edge over your opponents. Even though you can manipulate the game's difficulty thanks to the player-tailoring system (making it harder to kill enemies), hits with your firearms still wind up adding to your meter, allowing a player with an accurate flick of the analog stick to effectively combo his or her slow motion attacks, giving him or her an advantage in battle. Another issue comes in the fact that while you are asked to select a weapon at the start of a stage, you still have access to all of the weapons within the game thanks to your PDA, and between quick swapping and accessing these weapons with your pause menu, you're more than equipped to take out any enemies that you face. In fact, thanks to the unlimited bullets that you have with your basic pistols and the lack of penalties for carrying this arsenal, battles are relatively easy to get through regardless of who you're up against. While combat still isn't the primary focus of the game, it occurs frequently enough in a level to stand out as a weakness.